Memories of Russia

We had some friends in Russia for a while who were also missionaries. They had two children, later on three – Sam, Sophie and another little boy, I can’t remember his name, sorry. We played mostly with Sam and Sophie. They also spoke English, which was great because there weren’t many English speakers in Russia. I don’t think I told you this yet. Mum told me that when I was little and we had guests, I’d need to figure out what language to speak to the guest. It wasn’t always so easy to tell, so I came up with a simple test. I brought them two picture books, one in English and one in Russian. If they picked the Russian one, I’d speak to them in Russian from that point on. If they chose the English one, we’d stick to English. I have a vague memory of one guest, I think it was Varya or Lada, and they were giggling a lot and looking at my parents, as if I were very silly or perhaps a genius. The more I think about it, the smarter it seems, since it could take into account their eagerness...

I’m on a trip to Alice Springs now that the school holidays are over. I’ll write about them on another blog instead since that makes more sense and it gets annoying when all this stuff is mixed up. I think you can check the website here for other blogs by me. You can check it on my profile. Anyway, yesterday was my birthday and it was great. I don’t know how, but the subject of needles came up. Ironically, I hate needles. Always have. But this is a funny story about needles that you must know. On school morning Mum had to come to school with me so I could get a needle. The nurse told me to look at Mum when I got it. She was right, but I was a bit curious at first, which is bad because it makes you more curious about it and it hurts more. I think this was our манту needle. I’m not sure what it’s called in English. It probably doesn’t matter. We had to get the needle once a year, which sucks, really. Or was this a blood test I had this time? I cant remember, but I was very brave, ap...

There weren’t many things in Russia to remind us of the western world, but there were a few. Once of them was Subway in the city. What melts my heart is that when my sister speaks of Russia, she says she remembers going to Subway and eating meatballs subs. There were no meatball subs at the subway in Russia. Instead, Patrick and I had another favourite, the little “snack” subs, with ham and melted cheese on top of the toasted bread. We used to smear generous amounts of tomato sauce on the subs. Strangely when I was like in year three, I got sick and my taste buds or my appetite or something changed, because for some reason I couldn’t stand the thought of tomato sauce and cheese together. I don’t think I’d mind so much now, but I just don’t put tomato sauce and ketchup together anymore. There was also a kid’s play area at the subway in Krasnoyarsk. The two went together like peanut butter and jam in my mind – does that sound American? Well, we could all do with a little idiom sharin...